By Leila Samodien
Highly-skilled teachers are leaving the country in their droves, sparking fears that appalling working conditions, poor salaries and poaching could spark an education crisis.
Western Cape education department spokesperson Paddy Attwell said that 595 teachers in the province have resigned since the start of the school year.
And nationally, according to statistics released in December by the Cape Professional Teacher's Association (CPTA), it is estimated that 20 000 teachers leave the profession each year.
Although the national department of education was not convinced by the figures, it was unable to provide statistics to the contrary, saying an accurate assessment would take time to complete.
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Dr Rian de Villiers of the University of Pretoria, a teacher migration specialist, estimated that between 25 percent and 30 percent of all graduating teachers left annually to teach abroad.
He said reports had shown that between July 1997 and July 2006, more than 10 000 teachers from South Africa had migrated to the UK - more than any other country.
This trend could drastically increase in the next month, De Villiers warned, as hundreds of young teachers geared up to travel before the threatened abolition of the Working Holiday Visa, which currently allows them to work in the UK for two years if they are younger than 30.
The poaching of teachers and principals by overseas institutions had also become a worrying factor, especially in light of the existing severe shortage in South Africa.
"We are losing the best teachers in scarce subjects," De Villiers said.
Studies had shown that at least 6 000 schools around the country did not have qualified maths, science and native language teachers.
While the government had indicated a willingness to recruit subject specialists from Zimbabwe, he argued this was only a short-term solution.
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